Bain Capital and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. have put in their final bids for Australian software maker MYOB Lt., Reuters reported Monday. The company, which is owned by Archer Capital and HarbourVest Partners, could fetch more than $1 billion. Archer and HarbourVest paid about A$450 million for the company in 2008.

Bain Capital and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. are among the potential buyers for Australian software maker MYOB, Reuters reported. A sale of the company could fetch around $1 billion. MYOB is owned by Archer Capital and HarbourVest Partners, private equity investors that picked up the company in 2008 for roughly 450 million Australian dollars.

Commitments to funds of funds slipped in the first half of the year, following venture capital fundraising lower as the tight-money market continues. Twenty-six funds of funds closed on new money in the first half of the year, Preqin reports. They raised a total of about $5.5 billion, according to an excerpt of a market [...]

Buyouts recently wrapped its Q2 quarterly deal wrap-up, and the consensus, to put it bluntly, was ugly. Though our data was cut off at June 15, the results showed U.S.-based PE firms had closed 38 percent less control-stake deals in Q2 than in Q1, according to Thomson Reuters. This suggests many firms have spent much [...]

Online home goods retailer CSN Stores has raised $165 million in its first round of institutional financing from Battery Ventures, Spark Capital, HarbourVest Partners and Great Hill Partners. The nine-year-old company, which says it is profitable, will use the cash infusion to expand as it consolidates its catalog under the brand Wayfair.com, the company said Tuesday. The company will also use the funds for potential acquisitions.

Thomson Reuters, which publishes peHUB, has acquired World-Check, a provider of corruption prevention information. Financial terms were not announced. Spectrum Equity Investors and HarbourVest Partners acquired World-Check in 2007. UPDATE: Spectrum and HarbourVest invested $86 million equity in 2007 for a combined two-thirds of World-Check, a person says. The sale to Thomson Reuters is valued at north of $500 million, the source says. Portico Capital Securities provided financial advice to World-Check.

Private equity funds spent the last few years investing unprecedented sums in Asia. Now, secondary funds are swooping in for their share. That’s the impression from Monday’s announcement that a consortium of secondary investors has acquired a portfolio of stakes in Asia-based private companies from Bank of America valued around $400 million. The existing BofA [...]

A strange thing happened at the National Venture Capital Association conference on Thursday. Two limited partners speaking on the last panel of the day said they are very upbeat about the venture asset class. The positive attitude marked a sharp turnaround from years past, during which limited partners — although still maintaining allocations to the [...]

HarbourVest Partners has promoted Jeff Keay, Karin Lagerlund, Sebastiaan van den Berg, and Scott Voss to managing director. HarbourVest said Monday it is also in the process of establishing a team in Bogota, Colombia and expanding the team in Asia. Also, Philip Bilden, an MD with HarbourVet Partners in Asia, is transitioning to a senior [...]

BERLIN, March 2 (Reuters) – Buyout firms piling back into fundraising markets this year face raising far less capital than for their previous funds as investors limit the amount they are ready to give private equity for deals. Many big name private equity firms reaching the end of their investment periods or running low on [...]